Google Doodle waves in for François Truffaut

The latest Google Doodle has been unleashed by the Mountain View-based search giant in celebration of what would have been François Truffaut's 80th birthday.

Or rather, the latest three doodles, as the controversial critic turned film-maker is honoured with three efforts, each depicting a scene from one of the French New Wave pioneer's titles including the 1959 classic Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows).

Truffaut was born in Paris on 6 February 1932 and worked as a critic at film magazine Cahiers du cinéma before deciding to make his own movies. He began with the short film Une Visite in 1955 and followed that up with Les Mistons in 1957. In 1973 he won an Oscar and a brace of BAFTAs for La Nuit Américaine (Day for Night).

He also played scientist Claude Lacombe in Steven Spielberg's 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

He died on 21 October 1984, aged 52, at the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine in France.

The Google Doodle is now becoming so common that we're actually surprised to see the regular Google logo pop up on our browser now. This latest effort, counting the three as one, takes us to 25 for 2012 already, and we're only 37 days in.